It’s wealth not poverty that’s on the rise

The Census Bureau today released a report citing that 37 million Americans lived under the poverty line, a jump of 1.1 million from 2003. “I was surprised,” said Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan. “I thought things would have turned around by now.” What’s missing are the poverty threshold numbers that reveal that a family of four is considered “poor” if family income is below $19,000. What’s actually on the rise is not the number of poor people but the minimum income required for official “poverty” status. In 1980, a family of four was poor if income was below $8,400.